I’ve had a remarkably fortunate existence: at the age of 22, there are still very few people I know who have died. I still have 3 out of four of my grandparents. The only one who has died is my paternal grandfather.
Understanding my grand-dad helps me understand my dad. Dad’s not the same as grand-dad, not even close, but there’s no doubt that the things that Grandad stuggled with have had a huge impact on dad. And the things that grandad was good at, you can see in dad. There are so many beautiful memories of time with Granddad. Whenever we visited, he had a row of houses on top of a shelf. He would lift us up and we could lift the roof off and we’d get a lolly from inside. Grandad would easily have as much fun as we did. He knew how to spoil us.
And I can’t think of visiting Daylesford without playing a game of Yahtzee with Grandad. He had an orange plastic cup, with red plastic dice in it, with white dots on and slightly rounded corners from over-use. I was so happy the day that I remembered how many points it was from the top section to get the bonus: and grand-dad gave the most beautiful smile. Even when I was seventeen and visiting, we still played Yahtzee together: the grandkids and grand-dad.
Grandad taught me how to do multiply by 11 when it’s a large number. You just add the two digits together, and put the answer in the middle. So 11 * 35 = 385, because 3 + 5 = 8. I remember in year 7 in Jersey, being told to turn Grandad’s magic rule into a formula. It was then that I eventually worked out how it all worked. I was so impressed at how Grandad had made something that seemed so tricky, so absolutely simple.
Where most of my other relatives would be impressed by how I was going at school, or how playing footy was going, Grandad was much more interested in just spending time with us. I remember spending a whole afternoon and most of the evening just shelling peas. At the start Grandad would pretend to give you a disapproving look when he saw you eating one. But then you’d see him eating a whole handful, and giving you a mischievous smile and you knew that it was your secret together.
For the last ten years that I knew my Grandad, he thought he was going to die. He felt useless because he couldn’t work in the garden, or couldn’t have a job, and didn’t feel like he had a place in soceity. He did well to last as long as he did, he used to have lard on toast for breakfast, and for most of his life he smoked like a chimney. Any time you spend time with that family, the Grandad shaped hole is palpable. I’m not sure what inspired this post, but I miss him.